Author's Note: Saw a tumblr prompt on Sybrann's page and went with it. Enjoy!
Imagine Your OTP
Person A and B live across the country from each other. They've been skyping, texting, and talking for months but have never seen each other in person. They always make plans to travel to see each other but nothing ever happens. One day, Person A is at work/place they love and Person B shows up out of the blue to surprise them. Person A is an absolute mess.
"Dr Vincent?"
Edd looked up to see his two best nurses at his office door. Ang was leaning on the door frame and Nazz had actually stepped inside.
"One, you've got a visitor and two,…" Ang said.
"You need to get out of the office," Nazz said as she pulled him up from his desk chair and started dragging him out of his office.
"What? Ladies, please! I have work to do! Can't the visitor make an appointment?," he asked exasperatedly.
"I've tried, but I couldn't manage to get here til now," a baritone voice said.
Edd's head popped up so fast Nazz and Ang were afraid he'd snap his neck!
"K-Kevin?!"
"Hey, Edd."
They met in at a medical conference. Sorta. The whole thing was virtual. Each doctor was Skyped in for the call with several prominent physicians in their field. Edd is an occupational therapist and Kevin's company specializes in fitting children with prosthesis. As they learned more about how to help their tiniest patients live better lives, they got to know each other. It was Kevin who sent the first message after their first meeting. He had a lot of questions about how occupational therapists like Edd could help children ease into the world of living with a new limb.
Edd answered his questions as best he could and would take what questions he didn't have the answers to to his colleagues. While some were wary of the business man, Edd held out hope that Kevin wasn't just trying to make a buck off of desperate parents trying to help their disabled kids live in an able bodied world.
He wasn't.
In the seven months since they first met, Kevin's traveled to a handful of third world war torn countries with Doctors Without Borders to get refugee children fitted with prosthetics so they could continue to fight another day. He regularly works with kids who need the Ronald McDonald House and Shriner's Hospitals. He was supposed to meet Edd at three other conferences but something always came up. Like a chance to speak at the opening ceremonies to his state's Special Olympics games or having his college football jersey retired or his favorite cousin's wedding.
Between all that and his actual interest in what Edd did for a living and for fun, Edd's got a bit of a crush.
Now the tall, tanned and toned redhead was standing in his office, unannounced and very aware of the affect he's having on his new friend.
"Dude, are you okay?"
Edd's been mumbling near incoherent sentences for the past couple of minutes as he hides his red face, if his pink ears are any indication of things, in his hands.
"No!," Edd exclaims as he grabs Kevin's hand.
The redhead is surprised at the touch but doesn't shirk away from it. He gently squeezes Edd's hand back and opens his mouth to say something he hoped would calm Edd down when Nazz hands Edd a set of keys and says, "Lunch."
"Lunch," Edd repeats slowly as he takes the keys and walks towards the office's front door.
"It's Taco Tuesday at Mamacita's," Ang calls after him.
Nazz and Sarah, their receptionist, both leveled a look at her.
"What? I like tacos!"
Edd was no better on the drive over to the hole in the wall Mexican restaurant. Kevin would try to start a conversation with him, but Edd would quickly shush him. But at every stop sign and red light, Edd would look at him, break out into the reddest blush Kevin had ever seen and start giggling like a school girl.
When they made it to the restaurant, Edd's crush deepened when Kevin ordered his meal in perfect Spanish.
"I like him," Victoria, Edd's go to waitress in the joint, said with a wink at the doctor, which just sent him on another incoherent tangent.
"Of course he speaks perfect Spanish," Edd muttered in his arm fort as Victoria dropped off their drinks.
"And you speak perfect French," Victoria quipped as she held the cold soda bottle against the back of his neck.
He popped up like a Jack-In-The-Box and Kevin had a sudden urge to French kiss his gorgeous face as Edd went on a very coherent tangent in perfect French to their waitress.
Kevin's snickering wasn't helping, though, because as soon as Edd sent Victoria away, he turned on Kevin.
"And you! What exactly are you here for, Kevin?"
The annoyance in his eyes was cute, but the underlying spark of hope was heartstoppingly adorable.
"You," the redhead said sweetly.
"Me?," Edd squeaked.
"That's not a problem is it?," Kevin asked as their tacos arrived.
"No, senor," Victoria said. "The good doctor here takes problems and solves them, ain't that right, Dr V?"
Edd just nodded.
"Excellent. Enjoy!"
Edd rolled his neck tiredly and then looked at his plate. He loved Mamacita's. He loved tacos. But he just didn't have it in himself to eat. Looking at his lunch date, he sighed. Kevin quirked a brow.
Edd shrugged.
"I just…."
"Guy can't come see a friend?," Kevin smirked as took a bite of his carnita.
Then he moaned.
"Jesus, these are good."
And Edd smiled. If he could get a date to like Mamacita's, he knew he had done something right. And Kevin noticed his smile. It was something he could never get past. His eyes would sparkle and his cheeks would glow and something about the gap between his two front teeth just set the whole thing off. Edd was cute and while Kevin did feel a little nuts for flying halfway across the country just to see him, that smile made it worth it.
Some how embolden by Kevin's love for the food, Edd indulged himself and slowly started to open up. Still in a bit of shock that the redhead did indeed fly out just to see him, he tried his best to be a good host. But his tie took half of his tacos and he forgot to pick up the order for the office that Ang called in.
When Kevin suggested ice cream after lunch, Edd nearly ran them into traffic to get to his favorite ice cream shop across the street from the restaurant.
"Edd, I do not want to have to hook you up with my buddy that does adult prosthetics. Chill," he said as he pulled Edd out of the street and in for a tight hug. Mostly to keep the doctor from doing something stupid again and to steady his own heartbeat.
"Sorry," Edd said sheepishly as he melted into the hug.
Kevin just snickered as the usually pulled together doctor who seemed to be falling apart at the seams in front of his very eyes slowly came back together because of a hug.
"You gonna be ok? We can go without you walking us to our doom?," Kevin giggled.
Edd groaned as he hid his red face in Kevin's chest.
"I'll take that as a yes. Lead the way."
Edd sighed as he pulled his face out of Kevin's chest, took his hand and then walked them safely across the street for a ice cream and a little more conversation. The conversation turned into Edd texting Nazz that he was taking the rest of the day off, much to her relief. Ang's girlfriend, Sy, brought lunch, only to surprise them all with her own news that her old Little League friend had been planning the trip to see Edd for months, and it took him cancelling a trip to Indonesia and missing his class reunion to pull it off.
Ang just prayed that Kevin found her best friend as quirkly awesome as she did.
And he did.
It was over dinner, that Kevin knew that this trip would be the start of many trips he'd take to see Edd just because. Edd wouldn't shut up and his clothes were a mess because he couldn't get a bite of food in his face the first time. And it was so fucking cute and Kevin wanted to see it as often as possible.
"I can feed you, if you'd like," Kevin teased as Edd sloshed another bit of soup into his lap.
An image of Kevin feeding him blueberries from his fridge flashed into his head and Edd went pink as he started muttering again.
"No, no. That's quite alright. I just need a different spoon."
"That's your sixth spoon, Edd."
Edd sighed and put his face in his hands again.
"It's ok, Edd."
Edd just shook his head. Kevin slid his chair over next Edd's and pulled his hands off his face. Edd looked up at him with pleading blue eyes and Kevin was damn near done for.
"Look, I like you, ok? And I wanted to meet you and see what would happen," Kevin said gently as he kissed Edd's forehead.
The look in Edd's eyes went from pleading to disbelief, but that underlying bit of hope still danced in them. Then he smiled.
"Let's try this again," he said as he sat up and held out his hand. "Hello, my name is Eddward Vincent. Nice to meet you."
"Kevin Barr," Kevin grinned as he shook Edd's outstretched hand, before pulling him in for a real kiss.
It only took a second, but to Kevin it felt like a eternity before Edd kissed him back. And when the kiss broke apart, Edd was giggling like a school girl again. And Kevin had to snicker along with him.
"Better?," Kevin murmured into the top of Edd's beanie.
"Much," came Edd's ready reply.
After dinner, Edd took Kevin back to his hotel where he kissed him for the umpteenth time that night, plans for the rest of the week dancing in their heads.
Every lunch was full of bright conversations about work and how they could better work together. Dinner was dedicated to them. Their pasts, their hopes for the future. How they could make a long distance relationship work.
When Kevin left Sunday morning, Edd was damn near heartbroken.
"It's gonna be ok, Dork," Kevin said as he drew Edd into a long hug goodbye at his terminal gate. "I'll be back before you know it. And this time, I'll drag you out of your office."
"But that's Nazz's favorite office duty," Edd grinned.
"As long as I'm around, she's on coffee duty," Kevin smirked back.
"I'll be sure to let her know."
A few sweet kisses later and Kevin was gone.
Over the next three years, Kevin would pop up to see Edd and every great once in awhile, they'd actually plan a trip for Edd to come out to see him or for them to both meet up somewhere else for a much deserved vacation or a trip to work together to help kids in places where there was none.
But it was Kevin's last trip that was the most surprising of all. Kevin called it his trip home. And it made the pieces of Edd's heart that followed his man around the world whole.
It was a typical surprise visit from Kevin. He popped up at lunch and whisked Edd away for the rest of the day. Edd should have known by now that a cleared schedule didn't mean that he would get his mountains of paperwork done, but he just never learned.
They got lunch at Kevin's favorite Jewish deli in town and dessert at the candy store across the street. After a long walk around the park and then some time on the playground to themselves, they went to Edd's favorite French restaurant for dinner on the patio. When they made it back to Edd's, there was simple black box on the coffee table with a blue bow on top.
Kevin leaving him gifts around the house was nothing new, but Edd usually found them after Kevin left. This was the first time the redhead was there to actually give him the gift in person.
Kevin gently directed him to his favorite easy chair before grabbing the box off the table and and examining it carefully before handing it to a smirking Edd. When he opened it, a smaller blue ring box was nestled inside.
As he tipped the smaller box into his hand, Kevin knelt down next to him and said, "Whatever happens after you open this, just know that you're stuck with me here forever because I'm not leaving, but I'd rather live here with you, than not."
Edd eyed him curiously through his speech but when he opened the box, he saw why Kevin said what he said.
"Oh, my God! Kevin, are you serious?!," Edd said as he looked in the ring box and saw a platinum ring encrusted with blue and white diamonds sparkling back at him.
"As a heart attack. Will you let me stay here with you? Forever? Please?"
Shocked blue met pleading green.
"Marry me, Edd. Please."
Edd looked at Kevin and then the ring and then back to Kevin again as a series of jumbled words fell out of his mouth.
"Say, 'Yes,' Edd."
"Yes. Oh, my God, YES!," Edd said as he tumbled out of the chair and into Kevin's waiting arms.
"Dork," Kevin snickered.
"You want to marry this dork, my dear," Edd said as he kissed Kevin's face and Kevin put the ring on his finger.
"I do," Kevin said as he kissed him back.
And he did.
